Japan's Supermarkets Sales Grow: Updated March 22, 2024

 

Japan's supermarket sales grow 2.4% in 2023 on price hikes

Article Source: https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20240123/p2g/00m/0bu/049000c

Ideas:

For a very long time, in Japan, companies and especially supermarkets were afraid to increase prices for fear of losing customers and at the same time, if other supermarkets were not increasing prices, they didn't see the need to increase prices too.

Of course customers were probably buying less but the increase in prices offset the decreased buying by customers too. 

And yes, people might have traveled more and bought more outdoor good which increased sales in for some items.

Most likely many customers/consumers might have bought substitute items as a way to reduce costs of the regular items they usually buy became too expensive for what they wanted to pay.

Maybe not only buying ready-made meals for leisure, but the trend these day is convenience and maybe some/many families are opting for the easiest way to make/buy meals so maybe many households are buying reading made meals or bentos to eat at home.

For example, any time I go to Yokohama station and a supermarket there are hundreds, if not thousands of bento or ready made meals and there are always a lot of customers buying them all times of the day.

I sometimes go there and Sogo department store too, just to see all of the different kinds of ready-made meals or bentos that are available. And the same with 7-11 and all of the different bentos they have available too.

Japan, like maybe Europe a daily shopping situation and not like the US where maybe they go once a week, while maybe in the EU and Japan they might go shopping everyday for whatever they need for that day and maybe don't buy so much on a Saturday or Sunday for the week.

As more people travel, after the pandemic, is natural that more travel gear and outdoor equipment would be bought. 

Weather always is always a variable in shopping habits, for example last summer saw record temperatures well into late September but might have decreased demand for fall and winter clothing until maybe late November or December.

When I traveled to Yokohama Japan in January of 2024, via Seoul to Toyoko Haneda, there was a significant difference in the temperature in Yokohama compared to the Seoul area, which is usually super cold in January but Yokohama, which is adjacent to Tokyo the weather was mild and not really cold at all.

Consumer spending and consumer demand is never where it should be in Japan, as the Bank of Japan is always concerned about how to get consumer demand and consumer spending to increase in the Japanese economy.

Maybe, just maybe, if the company wage increases are large enough in April 2024, there might be a surge in spending during the Golden Week holiday period, which is the first week of May.

But that might be too much too expect as maybe households will hold on to their wage increases and not spend until they see inflation finally beginning to decrease sometime in the summer of 2024.

But maybe, if possible, if small and midsize companies are going to give wage increases too, as reports they say there are, then the Japanese economy may finally get out of its stagnation mindset and deflation mindset too.

Have a nice day and be safe!